In view of the poisioning of several persons living in the Chicago area after taking Extra-Strength Tylenol capsules, manufacturers of over-the-counter (O-T-C) drug have become very concerned that their products are tamper-evident or tamper-resistant, as the case may be. In an effort to address this problem, these manufacturers have looked to a number of different ways to make their products either tamper-resistant or tamper-evident.
Many O-T-C drugs are contained in bottles which are themselves contained within a heavy paper or lightweight cardboard box. One way to make the box tamper-evident is to seal the opposite ends of the box so that any opening of the box is evident. For example, the opposite ends of the box can be sealed with a drop or line pattern bead of thermoplastic material such as hot melt adhesive.
It was initially thought that sealing both ends of the box with a hot melt adhesive would render the package tamper-evident or tamper-resistant. Such a seal still renders the package tamper-resistant, i.e., resistant to tampering. However, it appears that when low temperature hot melt adhesives are used, the seal may sometimes be defeated by using a hair dryer or the like to reheat or reactivate the hot melt adhesive thereby facilitating the undetected opening or resealing of the box. In order to perform such an action, the tamperer would, of course, have to be both very careful and possess means to heat the hot melt equipment. In the case of high performance hot melt adhesives which melt at temperatures above 400.degree. F. or thermoset materials, the reheating of these materials would either destroy the box or be impossible, respectively.
It is thus apparent that it would be desirable to provide an improved tamper-evident package having an external box sealed by low temperature hot melt adhesives.